“I always knew my father was a narcissist but I hit my breaking point in 2016 when he made a suicide attempt. But it wasn’t.
Once I was in the hospital, the team hosted a family meeting with us all. My sister was teleconferenced in from another state. The team talked to us like babies and told us to have compassion for our father because he was having a hard time with the divorce.
I asked, ‘Divorce from who?’
They said, ‘Your mother. This has been a trying time.’
I replied, ‘They got divorced in 1989. Do you seriously think that is a relevant issue when this attempt coincides with him burning through the money from his mother’s death last year on dope?’
I never got an answer for that question but my realization at that moment was perfectly clear. My father had been a leech his whole life. He leeched off my mom. He worked under the table for decades to avoid child support. He went through jobs and friends like I change underwear. He eventually moved in to care for his mother and refused to work. She used to call me crying when he would be mean. She died after a fall while my father was helping her to dress.
I didn’t actively cut off contact. I just decided to see if he would initiate contact if I stopped my weekly calls. It took eight months. He called on my birthday and I let it go to voicemail but that poked the narcissistic bear and he proceeded to call my phone 118 times that day. Knowing that you can’t just give in, I didn’t answer. He eventually stopped leaving angry voicemails.
A year later, an aunt reached out to see if I would step up and care for my father and have him move into my house. Why? Because he had been leeching and couch surfing through all his siblings and they were burnt out. I said that I would consider it if he paid up his outstanding child support to my mother. And that folks, was the last I had ever heard of him or about him and that was 2017. I don’t know if anyone would bother telling me if he died. We never had a relationship with his side of the family. No social media contact. My mom’s house phone is the same one she got in the 1970s, so they might call her?”
